Re: Tracepoints

[Jim Blandy <jimb@redhat.com>]

"Newman, Mark (N-Superior Technical Resource Inc)" <mark.newman@lmco.com> writes:
> I don't want to go into detail until I get some kind of a feel for how
> this will be accepted but would the community mind if I took a stab at
> redoing the front end so that commands like "show", "tfind", "tdump"
> could be performed when the target or inferior is running?

Oh, please take a stab at whatever you like --- the important thing is
to talk about how you plan to go about it and get some buy-in before
you go off and sink a lot of time into something.

There's already some progress done in this area: look for references
to "asynchronous" or "async" in the code and manuals.  I don't really
know what its status is, but I have the impression it's incomplete.

> This would of course be done under either a compile switch or a runtime
> switch to ensure compatability with the current tools.

From gdb/doc/gdb.texinfo:

  @item -async
  @cindex @code{--async}
  Use the asynchronous event loop for the command-line interface.
  @value{GDBN} processes all events, such as user keyboard input, via a
  special event loop.  This allows @value{GDBN} to accept and process user
  commands in parallel with the debugged process being
  run@footnote{@value{GDBN} built with @sc{djgpp} tools for
  MS-DOS/MS-Windows supports this mode of operation, but the event loop is
  suspended when the debuggee runs.}, so you don't need to wait for
  control to return to @value{GDBN} before you type the next command.
  (@emph{Note:} as of version 5.1, the target side of the asynchronous
  operation is not yet in place, so @samp{-async} does not work fully
  yet.)
  @c FIXME: when the target side of the event loop is done, the above NOTE
  @c should be removed.

  When the standard input is connected to a terminal device, @value{GDBN}
  uses the asynchronous event loop by default, unless disabled by the
  @samp{-noasync} option.

  @item -noasync
  @cindex @code{--noasync}
  Disable the asynchronous event loop for the command-line interface.

Not that that answers every question or anything --- just trying to
suggest starting places.

I have this premonition that you have a lot of code reading ahead of
you.  :)